The Art of Listening

Question: Who are you? Whom am I listening to? You say, “Do not rely on any guru”; you say, “Listen to me”, listening to you is to listen to the greatest guru of all. I am puzzled. What am I to do?

问：你是谁？我究竟是在听谁？你曾说：“不要依赖任何导师。”你又说：“请聆听我的话。”聆听你，就是聆听最伟大的导师吧？我糊涂了，我该怎么做？

KRISHNAMURTI: Does it really matter very much who the speaker is? Surely it does not matter much by whom the microphone is made, but it matters very much what the microphone conveys to your ears. The voice is of no importance. Whose it is, whether it is educated, whether it is the voice of the cultured, it does not at all matter, but what is important is what it says, conveys. And what it says and the understanding of it depends upon you, not on the guru, not on the voice, but on how you understand it, how you translate it, how you put it into action. So again the voice is not important; what is important is listening.

克：台上这个讲话人是谁，真的那么重要吗？这个麦克风是谁制作的，这肯定不重要，重要的是这麦克风向你的耳朵传达着什么。声音本身毫无意义。是谁的声音？声音是否有教养？是否文明人的声音？这些根本不重要，重要的是在说什么，在传达着什么。在说什么，如何理解，这取决于你，而不取决于导师，也不取决于声音，而是取决于你如何理解，如何诠释，如何付诸行动。所以，再说一次：声音并不重要，重要的是聆听。

How do you listen? Do you listen with your projections, through your projections, through your ambitions, desires, fears, anxieties, through hearing only what you want to hear, only what will be satisfactory, what will gratify, what will give comfort, what will for the moment alleviate your suffering? If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires. And is there any other form of listening? Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything—to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby? Listening has importance only your suffering? If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires. And is there any other form of listening? Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything—to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby? Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one’s own desires through which one listens. Can one put aside all these screens through which we listen, and really listen?

What does this listening mean? That is all we are concerned with—not who the speaker is, it is utterly irrelevant, not whether he is good or bad, not whether he is the guru, small or big. But in listening to the speaker, you are going to find out how you are listening, how you are watching yourself. Do not merely listen to me but watch the process of your own mind—how you project, how you ward off, how you feel shy of certain statements, how you will resist, and how you will put aside a new idea, a new way of looking; all that reveals the process of your own mind, does it not? And when you discard, put aside all these projections of the mind, is there any other way of listening? Can one put them aside and really listen?

Then, is there a guru at all? Then, is a guru necessary at any time? We all think a guru is necessary from the beginning to the threshold. If the guru is not necessary after the threshold, then he is not necessary from the beginning because the end lies in the beginning, and the man who is seeking the threshold of reality must seek at the beginning, not at the end. And because we are sluggish, impatient, doubtful, discontented, we want to find somebody to lead us away from our discontent. The understanding of this is essential, not the entity who leads away, not the system, not the thought that will take us away from what we actually are.

So, is it not important to know how you are listening? And when you listen without these projections, what happens? Please follow this. What happens when you are not projecting your desires through which you hear, through which you translate to suit your particular temperament, your particular idiosyncrasies? When you are not projecting your desires, how do you listen? Is your mind capable of listening? Will it allow you to listen? And then when you are so capable of listening, and when you are listening, what happens? What happens to the mind that is so listening? This is important, but not whether there is a guru or not, not whether you are hearing the voice of the guru who is promulgating the truth to which you are listening, and which makes the guru essential for you. What are you listening to when you are not listening through the screen, through the layers of your own projections? Do you understand?

We are always listening to something—to a noise, to the voice of somebody, to the restless sea. But if you are not listening through your projections, then are you listening to anything? Please watch your own mind, not what I am saying. If you watch what I am saying, you are dependent on me, and if you depend on me, then you have fear; then you are fettered to me, and that is a bondage; that is a travail from which you have to go beyond. So from the very beginning, do not be dependent on anyone. Do not follow anyone because it matters what you are from the beginning, not what you are at the end.

So when the mind is no longer following, no longer listening to the voice of its own projections, its desires, ambitions, satisfactions, then what is the mind listening to? Is there a listening to anything? Is it not a complete openness, a complete state in which there is no reaction, no listening to anything, in which there is no concentration, no absorption with an idea, in any idea? Is it not a state of complete passive activity when the mind is very quiet, not listening to anything in particular, but listening, not projecting, but thoroughly still? Then, in that state, is there a guru? And in that state, is a guru necessary? Is that state not possible from the very beginning? That is, if I want to understand something fundamental, must I not be in that state always? Most of you are projecting your own desires, so most of you do not listen. You are always listening to something. You are not merely listening. You are always listening to your own voice, and that voice always assumes the voice of despair, of hope, of pleasure, of security. But if you are not listening to something, if you merely listen, then is there not an utter stillness of the mind which is not the result of any discipline to be achieved at some far end but which is to be understood right at the very beginning, from now on for the rest of your lives?

Can you completely and totally discard this whole idea of the guru, the awakener, the giver of comfort, the man who will lead you to truth? I say you can completely wipe it away when you see that listening to something is listening to your own projections, to your own desires, that it is translating them to suit yourselves; when you understand that, then there is no listening to anything; then there is only listening; that listening is eternal because it is not of time, because it is not of the mind.

Sixth Talk in Bombay, Feb 25, 1953